1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a process for dividing up and recovering the individual materials from old cables, according to the preamble of claim 1.
2. Background Art
Old cables occur in large quantities during the renewal of buried cables or overhead cables and in communes, industrial plants or electricity companies. At the same time, the cable diameters can quite often amount to 5 to 10 cm, and the utilization, that is to say recovery of the individual cable constituents is expedient especially as regards cables with a diameter of 2 cm and above. Cables of this type are composed of several individual cable strings which are constructed in strand form with a copper strand or aluminum strand or as a solid cable and which are each sheathed with a plastic. In this arrangement, several strand-shaped or solid cable strings are combined and surrounded by a plastic and/or lead sheathing. The entire cable can then be equipped once again with a plastic sheathing.
German Offenlegungsschrift 2,655,424 has already made known a process in which the cables are severed in a transverse plane and a longitudinal plane and the individual parts thus separated are sorted. However, the disadvantage of cutting through all the sheathed layers completely is that the further processing of the individual parts involves a high outlay and is inexact.
German Offenlegungsschrift 3,412,044 has made known an apparatus for the mechanical dismemberment of cables which carries out cutting to a specific length and processing in a special cutting head. In particular, this known publication provides a sheath long-slitting apparatus which makes it possible to divide the cable up into its individual inner constituents. The cables are severed to a sortable length by a following cutting unit and the individual parts are sorted. The disadvantage of this apparatus too is that subsequent sorting of strand-shaped inner cables can be carried out only with difficulty and in an unsatisfactory way.
A similar process is described in German Offenlegungsschrift 3,529,322, in which the cable remains are cut into small parts in a comminuting machine and dismembered into a loose mixture of metal and insulating material. The comminuted material is conveyed into a separating apparatus by means of a blower and is sorted according to the type of material by washing with water. The disadvantage of this process is that a complicated method of separating the comminuted material is employed, and in particular the disposal of the heavily laden water presents problems.
Finally, German Offenlegungsschrift 3,442,941 makes known a further apparatus for dividing up the insulating sleeves of cables, especially of cable waste, oppositely rotatable rollers with guide and transport grooves being provided for the cable, and a knife disk slitting open the cables. Once again, this apparatus solves the problem of the re-utilization of cable waste only to an unsatisfactory degree, since slit-open cables can be sorted and transported only inadequately.